Making Way for the New

9.30am Sunday 6 July 2008

Readings: Isaiah 43:18-21; Mark 2:18-22; Revelation 21:1-8 TNIV

There are two issues raised in the passage we read from Mark's Gospel this morning that are worthy of our attention. The first has to do with fasting. By fasting is meant not eating food for a certain period of time. It is something that we read about throughout the Bible and is normally linked with prayer. It happened in times of national crisis. For example when the armies of Moab and Ammon came to make war on the kingdom of Judah for no just cause, Jehoshaphat, the King, proclaimed a fast throughout the nation and called the people together to seek help from the Lord.[1] He led the people in prayer, reciting how Israel had been kind to these two nations when they came out of Egypt by not molesting them in any way, and how they were repaying that kindness by coming to drive them out of the land God had given them. He asks God to intervene, acknowledging that they do not have the power to withstand their attack. God answered his and the people's prayer in a remarkable way. As they stood before the Lord, the Spirit of the Lord came on one of the prophets, Jahaziel, and he brought a word of encouragement for Israel, telling them where they would find their enemy, that they would not need to fight this battle, but were to take their positions, stand firm and see the deliverance of the Lord, for God would be with them. The story goes on to tell how the Lord set ambushes amongst those who had come to make war against Judah so that they slaughtered each other. When Jehoshaphat and his army arrived on the scene all they saw were dead bodies everywhere.

Fasting was common in times of national and personal repentance. An example of personal repentance was when David fasted when the child that Bathsheba had borne to him became ill. David knew that he had done wrong by committing adultery with Bathsheba and then arranging to have her husband killed in battle, tantamount to murder. However he prayed that God might spare the child.[2] In Psalm 51 we have David's plea for mercy, forgiveness and restoration.

Fasting was also common when important decisions were to be made. Jesus fasted the night before he chose from his followers the twelve who would be with him as his apostles.[3] The church leaders in Antioch were fasting at the time when the Spirit told them to set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work he had for them.[4]

Fasting was very much a part of the religious life of God's people. At the time when Jesus was on earth, the stricter Jews had made it a regular practice. Although through Moses God had commanded only one day in the year that was a compulsory fast, the Day of Atonement, the day when the nation confessed its sin and received forgiveness, the stricter Jews such as the Pharisees fasted on the second and fifth day of every week, Mondays and Thursdays, not all day, but from 6am to 6pm, after which time normal food could be eaten. For example we see this in the words of the Pharisee in the parable Jesus told in Luke 18: "To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get."[5]

In Mark 2 we are told in the opening verse of our reading that both the disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees "were fasting," and so some people came to ask Jesus why his disciples were not doing the same. In his reply Jesus uses the illustration of what happens at a marriage , "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them." They cannot, as long as they have him with them. But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away, and on that day they will fast."[6] It was a very apt analogy as weddings were, and still are, joyous occasions. The bride and groom didn't go away on a honeymoon but stayed at home. Their home would be open for up to a week and there was continual feasting and rejoicing. There was a rabbinic ruling that exempted all those in attendance on the bridegroom from all religious observance that would lessen their joy, including fasting. By universal consent the marriage week was to be a time of unmixed festivity. All mourning was suspended. All fasts were off. This was a time to celebrate, and it was a duty to gladden the hearts of the bride and bridegroom. This is still common in the Middle East.

When we were with Judith Arcus we climbed up to Al-Qahirah Castle, which dominates the city landscape where she lives. It was about a 20 minute walk from where we were staying. The view over the city from the castle was amazing and it was obvious why the site had been chosen as a fort centuries before. However, we could hear the sound of loud music booming from one of the homes on the opposite side of the hill about half a kilometre away, and Judith commented that it would be a wedding celebration and that it would go on for several days. Such was the practice in Jesus' day.

In the hard life of that part of the world, for many men their marriage celebration would be the happiest week of their lives. Close friends of the bridegroom and bride would be invited to the week of festivities. They were called the 'children of the bride chamber,' which is the literal translation of what is in our reading. And you could say it was in keeping with the general tenor of what God commanded in the law. It says there, "If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married."[7] God wants couples to enjoy their new relationship. There are a number of laws that show how humane his commands were. For example, he was concerned with people's safety millenniums before 'OSH' was thought of. "When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof."[8]

Getting back to our text, Jesus takes this homely illustration of the marriage celebration and calls his disciples 'children of the bride chamber,' that is, chosen guests at a wedding feast. Why did he do that?

 

Now the fasts that the Pharisees observed, and it would have been true of John's disciples, too, related to events in Israel's history, particularly in connection with the exile and with the waiting and longing for the coming of the Messiah. However, the prophets of the Old Testament spoke of a day when such fasting would end. Jeremiah said, "Hear the word of the LORD, you nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.' For the LORD will deliver Jacob and redeem them from the hand of those stronger than they. They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD-- the grain, the new wine and the olive oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow."[9]

 

Isaiah prophesied along similar lines when he said, "Those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away."[10]

 

Jesus, in referring to himself as the bridegroom, is saying something quite extraordinary here. In the prophetic books of the Old Testament the bridegroom metaphor was often used for the Lord who would once again be a faithful husband to his people, even although they had deserted him. The Jews of Jesus' day often thought of the Messiah's coming in terms of a bridegroom coming for his bride. John the Baptist does this when an argument developed between some of his disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. His disciples came to John and said, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan--the one you testified about--well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him." To this John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less"[11].

Jesus, in claiming to be the bridegroom, is saying that the long-awaited time for the coming of the Messiah is here. God is now redeeming his people. The bridegroom has come, and this is a time of joy and festivity, not sorrow and fasting. Now that his disciples had him with them there was no question of them fasting. It would have been completely inappropriate. But there would come a time when his dsciples would fast, after he was taken from them. What we need to be clear about is that Jesus is not condemning fasting. In the Sermon on the Mount he begins his teaching on fasting with the words, "When (not if) you fast..." meaning that it will be something those who follow him will do. But there is a right time for it, and it was to be done in an unobtrusive manner, unlike the Pharisees who, when they fasted, whitened their faces and went about with dishevelled garments on their fast days so that everyone would see and admire their devotion. Jesus said, when you fast, for whatever reason you do it, do it in secret. Only your heavenly Father need know about it.

Now what does this teach us? Why is this included in Scripture? Let me suggest two reasons. First, this teaches us that the characteristic attitude of the Christian to life is to be joy. The discovery of Christ and being in company with him is the key to happiness. To be joyful in some of the situations Christians found themselves, like when Paul and Silas were singing praises to God while in the stocks in prison, to the average person seems absurd. And yet this is the hall mark of the Christian life. William Barclay tells of a criminal who had brutally and callously murdered men, women and children in his career of crime. After he was captured and imprisoned, two women visited him in prison. The prisoner would not even speak to them. He would glower at them with the face of a wild beast. However, when they went, they left him a copy of the Bible hoping that he might read it, which he did. When he came to the story of the crucifixion something touched this man's hardened heart and he was transformed. Later when the jailer came to lead the doomed man to the scaffold, instead of finding the surly hardened brute he expected, he found him smiling and radiant. He had become a new creature in Christ. The Christian life is a joy-filled life.

Note before we move on that when Jesus ends his comment about fasting, his words show very clearly that he knew what was ahead. He spoke of a time when the bridegroom would be taken away. Those listening would not have understood what he was referring to. But here, right at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus could see the cross in the distance. Even at this stage he had counted the cost and would not be deflected from his calling, and courageously chose to go this way that he knew would end in death, but also our salvation.

The second issue raised in Mark is gleaned from the remarks Jesus made following his words about fasting. Jesus uses two homely images. He knew that he was coming with a message that would not sit comfortably with what his people knew, and he also knew that his way of life was radically different from that of the teachers of his day. He also knew how difficult it was for people to entertain new truth, and so in using these images he shows how necessary it is for people to be flexible enough to cope with change. Jesus was an expert in getting from "the here and now" to "the there and then." He was able to take the things of every day life and fill them with heavenly significance. He lived so close to God that everything spoke to him of God. This is something that came through on the pilgrimage walk on Iona, which I mention in the Parish News. A person tells of how, on Saturday afternoons, he used to go for country walks with one of the most famous of Scottish preachers. They used to have long talks together. He commented later: "Wherever the conversation started, he had a way of cutting straight across country to God." (p.61) This is what Jesus did.

First he takes the image of sewing and speaks of the danger of sewing a new patch on an old garment. The word used here means that the new cloth was still undressed; it had never been shrunk; so when the garment got wet in the rain the new patch shrunk, and being much stronger than the old, it tore it apart. There comes a time when the day of patching is over, and re-creating must begin. In the time of Martin Luther it was not possible to patch up the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church; the time for reformation had come. In the time of John Wesley, for Wesley at least, the time for patching the Church of England was done. He did not want to leave it, but in the end he had to do so, for only a new fellowship could cater for what was happening throughout The United Kingdom. We need divine wisdom to recognise the times when what is required is the complete abandonment of the old and the acceptance of something new.

Next he takes the image of wineskins. There were no such things as bottles in Jesus day. Wine was stored in wineskins. When the wineskins were new they had a certain elasticity; but as they grew old they became hard and unyielding. New wine is still fermenting and gives off gases that cause pressure. If the skin is new it will yield to the pressure, but if it is old and hard and dry it will explode and both wine and skin are lost. Jesus is pleading for flexibility, for it is so easy to become set in our ways, so set that we cannot entertain new ideas and concepts, new ways of doing things. J A Findlay quotes a saying of one of his friends - "When you reach a conclusion you're dead." What he meant was that when our minds become fixed and settled in their ways, when they are quite incapable of accepting new truth and to contemplate new ways, we may be alive physically, but we are dead mentally.

This was true of many in Jesus day. The Jewish people at that time could not accept that God wanted to do things differently. In essence Jesus was saying that you can't take the truth of the kingdom of God and pour it into the old wineskins of Judaism. Jesus, the true Messiah could not fit with the Messiah of Jewish expectation. The new wine of the kingdom was one which welcomed the sick and unclean, liberated the oppressed, cleansed lepers, enjoyed table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners, included Gentiles, even Romans who believed in the Messiah, and won victory over one's enemies by loving and praying for them. None of this could ever have found a place in Judaism. A new wineskin was needed. The rule of God Jesus proclaimed went far beyond the experience and knowledge of anything in Judaism.

 

The word that captures the essence of what Jesus is saying in this passage is the word used for 'tear' in verse 21: "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If they do, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse." It is the Greek word from which we get our English word 'schism,' meaning division and separation. We find this word in two other places in Mark's Gospel and where it is found is significant. The first is in Mark 1 when at Jesus baptism we read, "Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove."[12] The other is near the end of the Gospel when at the moment of his death, "The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom."[13] Both the Spirit's coming on Jesus at his baptism and the tearing of the curtain in the temple speak of the new relationship God will now have with humankind. It is as Joel prophesied and Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people."[14] God's relationship with us is difference because of Christ. He is not far off as he seemed in temple worship. He is here with us, within us, as we open our lives to him. We no longer have to have an intermediary to act for us on God's behalf as the priest did in Bible times. The ripping of the curtain in the temple signifies the ending of the old covenant with its animal sacrifices to maintain a right relationship with God. Now through Christ we can come before God's throne of grace and receive help in times of need. This was radically different to anything that had gone before.

It is a reminder to us, particularly as we grow older, to be wary of developing a dislike to what is new and unfamiliar. We are reluctant to change our habits and ways of life. The Christian needs to be like Abraham, who went out not knowing where he was going.[15] In the same chapter of Hebrews there is a significant insight. It says, "By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons, and worshipped as he leaned on the top of his staff."[16] Right at the end of his life Jacob still had his staff in hand, ready for the road. If we are really to rise to the height of the challenge Christ puts before us in following him, we must remain flexible and open to new things, being willing to break out of the old mold. There is always a freshness and creativity about what God is doing, and just as Isaiah prophesied to the people of his day, so we need to be open to the new things he is seeking to do through his Spirit today. For one day he will make all things new, both in heaven and on earth.